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BYU PATHWAY WORLDWIDE
What is a professional email?
A professional email is an email sent in a professional setting, such as between two colleagues, a supervisor and their employee, a student, and their professor, or a job applicant and a hiring manager. Professional emails contain a clear, actionable message.
Professional emails can be short messages thanking someone for meeting with you and wishing them a good weekend. In most cases, though, the email is about a workplace task.
Why is it important to know how to write a professional email?
Because of its speed and efficiency, you’ll likely use email in some capacity no matter your role or the industry you work in. Because email and other forms of digital communication don’t allow us to pick up on natural communication cues like body language, it’s essential to know how to write professional emails that are clear and accurate.
Knowing how to write a professional email can:
Save time
Provide clarity
Show competency
Establish a reputation for a person or business
Tips on how to write a professional email
Include the topic in the subject line
The first thing your recipient sees in their inbox is your email’s subject line. In a marketing email, the subject line can make the difference between the recipient opening it and deleting it. Your subject line needs to be concise, attention-grabbing, and relevant.
State exactly what your email is about in the subject line. This way, the recipient knows what to expect from your email. There’s no need to get creative here; the recipient will appreciate a clear subject line that helps them read and respond to your email efficiently.
Address the recipient properly
The best way to address a professional email recipient is “Dear,” followed by either their first name or their last name along with the appropriate honorific. If you aren’t sure which honorific to use, stick with either their first name or first and last name.
Alternatively, you can start the email with “Hello” or “Hi,” followed by the recipient’s name. Usually, this is reserved for individuals with whom you already have a relationship, like a colleague or a manager.
Keep it focused
A professional email should cover one topic. It could be a question, a request, an answer, or an explanation. Whatever it is, the email’s body should be focused on this topic. Keep your email concise but don’t leave out key information. Concise means “only as long as it needs to be.”
Include your signature
After writing the email’s closing line, which should include a call to action or an actionable step, add an appropriate sign-off and your signature. A professional signature should include all information the recipient might need to communicate with you appropriately, such as your title, phone number and extension, and email address. Yes, we know they could just hit reply to respond, but including your email address eliminates any potential confusion about how to reach you.
Proofread
Before you hit send, proofread your email. Do a quick read-through to make sure it doesn’t contain any typos, spelling mistakes, or grammatical mistakes. Email mistakes can undermine your entire message and make you look unprofessional.
Avoid a casual tone
A professional email should be written in a professional tone. Avoid slang, colloquialisms, and anything else that feels casual enough to be a text message. Similarly, steer clear of cliché phrases like “just circling back” when following up.
Watch your words
Remember, anybody can forward your email to anybody else. Similarly, anybody can download, print, or screenshot your email. An email is a written record of a conversation, so if you don’t want a written record of something, don’t say it in an email.
Make your directions clear
Don’t assume the recipient knows where a specific file is located or which sources you used to support your position in a recent essay. Spell out everything you mention and include links when applicable so your recipient knows exactly what you’re talking about—and can access it easily.
Tips for Better Customer Service Emails
Be human
When working with your support team members to improve their email strategies, encourage them to use language that feels natural. Contractions, slang, and even emojis are acceptable if they match the tone of the customer’s original message.
The more you allow your team to use their language within customer service emails while remaining professional, the more natural the conversation will feel for your customers.
There’s another aspect of speaking humanly: Using the customer’s name. Using their name conveys that you see them as a person with an identity rather than a faceless customer.
Be timely
When a customer reaches out, the time it takes before your team responds or resolves the issue can have a tangible impact on their experience. Make it easy for your team members to find the answers they need and get them across to customers as quickly as possible.
Ensuring that your customer service team members can get answers or escalate to appropriate team members quickly means that your customers will always get responses promptly. Because of that, they’ll feel respected, prioritized, and valued.
Apologize when needed
The first step to fixing a problem is a genuine apology. If a customer comes to your team and is upset or frustrated, take the time to hear them out and apologize.
Just like with any interpersonal interaction, hearing someone’s complaints and addressing them directly and kindly can have a significant impact on the success of your customer service emails.
Answer all the customer’s questions
One of the best things you can do for a customer is ensure that everything they ask in their email gets answered clearly and concisely the first time you reply.
If you recognize that a conversation is complex and has tons of questions, be sure to read the original email a few times before sending your response to make sure you’ve addressed all of their concerns.
Speak clearly and concisely
While encouraging your team members to follow your tone and style guidelines and allowing them to find their own voices, it’s still important to encourage everyone to speak clearly and concisely in your customer service emails.
Some tips to use for concise, straightforward writing are:
Consider breaking things down into easy-to-read lists instead of writing in long paragraphs.
Ensure that your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are 100% accurate.
Avoid negative phrases or judgment-loaded statements about the customer.
Use a writing assistant like Grammarly to notify you of typos, misspellings, and run-on sentences and suggest changes.
Send documentation and screenshots to help clarify.
Take out unnecessary phrases like “I think” and get directly to your point.
Not only will this make your emails easier to read, but they will also take less time to write.
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